During a time of nuclear and other threats every bit as great as those we face today...if not, in fact, greater...President John F. Kennedy, himself a Democrat, brother of Ted Kennedy, and a WWII veteran, told us not to quaver in the least before any sabre(s) rattles at us, nor before those who tell us and the world not all deserve a place of participation therein. He held his head high defending South Vietnam when no one else would, and when even Ted Kennedy and Democrats like Fulbright questioned the need to support democracy abroad...it's hard to imagine President Kennedy rebuking George Walker Bush for believing Iraqis are right when they say Iraqis, not the USA, Qaeda, or Iran or anyone else, will best decide what the fate of Iraq shall be...and after all, the 2003 AUMF in majority set forth that Congress wanted Iraqis to be free and self-determining as objectives, beyond just Hussein's removal WMD or not.

 

Further, President Kennedy concurrently said that we should not ask what our country can do for us but what we can do for our country; that sentiment was meant for ALL nations, an exhortation to all great and small to help individuals have all chances to rise on their own according to their own abilities and initiatives, extending a hand up, not handout, to those not yet as fortunate, with charity to those who through no fault of their own are not as mentally or physically capable as the average person.

 

In contrast to President Kennedy, some today seem to think it's heresy against local or national public policy, and therefore misconduct or distemper, to ask what we can do to elevate our own and other populations from bare expectancy of non-resistance or even police intervention to aggression borne abroad, government owned housing, government provided healtchcare, and whatever smattering of Walmarts, strip malls, public and private prisons, and regulations of persons and personality itself become necessary to keep such ball rolling...since those same some started it under Clinton or earlier, it hardly seems regardless of political affiliation(s) they're just offering it as "see what we have to do under meanie Bush, but Utopia follows with our mass election or re-election...we're pulling for you, though...hang in there!".

 

In that regard, Representative Blunt is correct that Conservatives need not so much concentrate on stopping the agenda(s) of in-practice non-Conservatives, but offer responsible alternatives thereto that uplift free trade and classical opportunities thereto attendant for ourselves and for the world's populations, with eye toward progress in diversity and not Laden-like or collectivist style stagnation.

 

I share the sentiments of Conservatives such as Roy Blunt, and that is the reason I seek to support like-minded candidates for the 2008 elections. As always, one hopes the William F. Buckley Jr. or F.A. Hayek models of capitalism will once again become an omnipartisan given, not a source of division.